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annuum Peppers - pick or leave?

Tinkerbelle

Tinkerbelle

Just picked these peppers - jalapeno, serrano and landes doux as they were bigger than the plants they were attached to and I wasn't getting any more flowers.
I presume the plants were putting all their energy into these monster peppers.
In future do I leave peppers on the plant to ripen and trust the plants to get on with it or do they need picking to encourage more growth?

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It's sorta like Strawberries.
We planted these new strawberries in late Feb & picked all flowers & runners up until 2 weeks ago.

Look at the size of the plants, all covered with lowers & small berries
Yes I am the planed parenthood of my plants.

Case in point, the Lesya pepper. Starts covering its self in buds way too soon
it will stay squat & never grow if you don't pick & choose the buds.

The plants will cover up with buds & put on so many peppers they will break the branches.
I will take all the buds off that are not in the open, Lesya peppers are large & pointed so the wedge the
branches apart breaking them.

The plant is the mother, & she will not produce great offspring if is she is weak & tired.



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Tinkerbelle said:
In future do I leave peppers on the plant to ripen and trust the plants to get on with it or do they need picking to encourage more growth?
Click to expand...

My experience:
  • peppers taste better when allowed to ripen on the plant (especially in my climate).
  • local birds prefer ripe peppers.
  • picking encourages flowering (and hence more peppers).
I prefer to pick them as late as possible... Trust the plant.
 
ahayastani said:
My experience:
  • peppers taste better when allowed to ripen on the plant (especially in my climate).
  • local birds prefer ripe peppers.
  • picking encourages flowering (and hence more peppers).
I prefer to pick them as late as possible... Trust the plant.
Click to expand...
I agree with you on everything, except leaving fruit on a plant that's just getting started.
A mature plant can be counted on to ripen & produce more pods , an immature plant has no such reserves.

I have noticed that a plants #1 job is to produce offspring & like that ripe yellow cucumber you missed, the plant will die soon after.

I believe you should pick early buds to make the plant stronger first.

@Tinkerbelle said:
Just picked these peppers - jalapeno, serrano and landes doux as they were bigger than the plants they were attached to and I wasn't getting any more flowers.
I presume the plants were putting all their energy into these monster peppers.

I believe you should pick early buds to make your plant stronger first.

Just my .02
 
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I understand what @Marturo says.
I also understand what @ahayastani is saying.
I find it funny to have this division of opinions and that both are so enriching.

*I think what Marturo is trying to say is that you should remove the pepper while it is still small.

In my opinion, both are right. It all depends on the variety you grow.

I think (based on my little experience of growing in containers) that for varieties that flower slowly, especially at the beginning, it is useful to remove the first fruits. Thus the plant concentrates its energy on growing and not on fattening the first fruits. The bigger the plant, the more knots it will have. Removing the first fruits will begin to develop strong flowers on the rest of the nodes (plus es will have a lot more energy to focus on vegetative growth).
For me, this is really useful with large-peppers annum varieties.

However, I also think that for most of the chinenses and bacatums that I have grown, this is not necessary. They are such productive plants that you really don't have to worry about these issues.

I apologize for not breaking the tie. My answer is that it all depends on the variety and size of the peppers. It is always convenient to have the largest number of flowers set at the same time.

Cheers!
 
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